There was this night nurse with quite the attitude. She was trying to move my legs, and every time anyone tried to move them, they’d just grab me by the heel. I’d say, “No, no, no, not by my foot. Move up higher. Grab from up higher.”

But they didn’t understand the words “foot” or “heel,” so it was all sign language trying to show them: don’t grab my heel.

This night nurse was insistent. “There’s a bar under this whole thing. It shouldn’t hurt.”

“I understand there’s a bar, there’s a brace under there. I’m telling you, when you pick up by my heel, it still hurts.”

“No, no, no pain. The bar fixes it.”

“No, it still hurts.”

“No, it’s fine.”

She would insist on picking up by my heel. “See, fine.”

“No, it hurts.”

But she kept insisting on it. On the left one with the ankle fixtures, she’d grab those ankle bars and pick me up by the ankle hardware. I’d be screaming in pain.

“Please don’t do that.”

“No, it’s fine. This is secure. This is solid. We can lift by this.”

“No, it hurts.”

“No, it shouldn’t hurt. It’s fine.”

I could not communicate enough that it actually still hurt. They kept telling me it shouldn’t hurt because of the hardware. I started thinking maybe I just had a really low pain threshold. They’re giving me pain meds, telling me they should be able to lift by these things. Maybe I needed to focus on controlling my own pain better, just overcome more of it myself.

Come to find out later, there was a reason for all of that pain. But in the meantime, I started thinking maybe I needed to work on my own pain control.

Finding My Coping Mechanisms

So I spent a lot of time doing controlled breathing—in through the nose, out through the mouth—and doing body checks. I’d go through my muscles and think, “All right, work from my feet up: what muscles am I clenching? What can I relax? What little muscles are tense that I’m not even realizing?”

I’d work muscle by muscle trying to relax them, work up to my butt, then go back and repeat. It was a mental routine that kept me occupied and helped with the pain while I was waiting to find out about transport home.